Photo of Kimberly Stratton

Kimberly Stratton

Associate Professor

Phone:613-520-2600 x 1384
Email:kim.stratton@carleton.ca
Office:2A47 Paterson Hall

Biography

Kimberly Stratton received her B.A. degree (1991) in English and Religion from Barnard College in New York City. She completed a Master of Theological Studies at Harvard University (1995), concentrating on scripture and interpretation. In the middle of her master’s degree she studied in Israel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for a year and a half (1992-1994), where she passed the Hebrew Language Equivalency Exam (ptor). She returned to New York City to pursue doctoral studies at Columbia University, completing her Ph.D. (2002) in the History of Religions in Late Antiquity. Her research covers the fields of early Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, as well as Greco-Roman culture and religion.

Research Interests

  • Religion, violence, and social identity in Antiquity
  • Ancient magic
  • Gender

Fall 2023 courses

RELI 4741: Issues in Religion 

Publications

Monograph:

Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World.  Gender, Theory, and Religion.  New York: Columbia University Press: October, 2007.

* Winner of F. W. Beare Book Award, Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, 2008

* Short-listed for Best First Book in the History of Religions Award, American    Academy of Religion, 2008

Edited Volumes:

  1. Crossing Boundaries in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: Ambiguities, Complexities, and Half-Forgotten Adversaries. Co-edited with Andrea Lieber. Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements Series. Leiden: Brill: 2016.
  1. Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in Antiquity. Co-edited with Dayna Kalleres. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Edited Journal Volume

Special Issue on Violence and Communal Identity in Ancient Religions. History of Religions vol. 57, no. 1. August 2017.  

Essays

  1.  “Violence.” In The Oxford Handbook of New Testament, Gender, and Sexuality. Edited by Benjamin Dunning. New York: Oxford University Press (submitted, forthcoming).
  2. “Narrating Violence, Narrating Self: Exodus and Collective Identity in Early Rabbinic Literature.” History of Religions, vol. 57, no. 1. August 2017: 68-92.
  3. “Children and Violence in Jewish and Christian Traditions.” Co-authored with Ra’anan Boustan. Introduction to Special Issue on Children and Violence. Journal of Religion and Violence 4 (3): 2016, 1-11.
  4. “Alan F. Segal: A Life in Perspective.” In Ambiguities, Complexities, and Half-Forgotten Adversaries: Crossing Boundaries in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Co-edited by Andrea Lieber and Kimberly Stratton. Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements Series. Leiden: Brill, 2016: 1-16.
  5. “Magic in Greco-Roman Antiquity up to and Including the Republic.” In Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West. Edited by David J. Collins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015: 83-112.
  6. “Interrogating the Magic-Gender Connection.” In Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in Antiquity.  Edited by Kimberly Stratton with Dayna Kalleres. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014: 1-37.
  7. “Magic, Abjection and Gender in Roman Literature.” In Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in Antiquity.  Edited by Kimberly Stratton with Dayna Kalleres. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014: 152-180.
  8. “Identity.”  In The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions.  Edited by Barbette Stanley Spaeth.  Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2013: 220-251.
  9. “Magic Discourse in the Ancient World.” In Defining Magic.  Edited by Michael Stausberg and Bernd-Christian Otto. Critical Categories in the Study of Religion series.  London: Equinox Publishing. 2012: 243-254.
  10. “The Eschatological Arena: Reinscribing Roman Violence in Fantasies of the End Times.”  Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches, vol.17, nos. 1-2. January 2009: 45-76. Also available online: http://www.ingentaconnect.com /content/brill/bii/2009/00000017/F0020001/art00003 (*Reprinted in Violence, Scripture and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity. Edited by Ra’anan S. Boustan, Alex P. Jassen, and Calvin J. Roetzel. Leiden: Brill, 2010: 45-76.)
  11. “Curse Rhetoric, Violence, and the Politics of Identity in Early Judaism and Christianity.”  In Identity and Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean: Jews, Christians, and Others.  Essays in Honour of Stephen G. Wilson.  Edited by Philip Harland and Zeba Crook.  Sheffield/Phoenix Press, 2007: 18-30.
  12. “The Rhetoric of ‘Magic’ in Early Christian Discourse: Gender, Power, and the Construction of ‘Heresy.’”  In Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses.  Edited by Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2007: 89-114.
  13. “Imagining Power: Magic, Miracle and the Social Context of Rabbinic Self-Representation.”  Journal of the American Academy of Religion vol. 73, no.2.  June, 2005: 361-393.  Also available online: http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org.proxy.library.carleton.ca/cgi/reprint/73/2/361
  14. “Male Magicians and Female Victims: Understanding a Pattern of Magic Representation in Early Christian Literature.”  Lectio Difficilior 2 [2004]. Online: http://www.lectio.unibe.ch/04_2/HTML/stratton.htm
  15. “The Mithras Liturgy and Sepher Ha-Razim: Introduction and Translation.” In Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice. Edited by Richard Valantasis.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  2001: 303-315.

Recent Conference Papers

  1. “The Ultimate Sacrilege—Deicide and the Paschal Lamb: Appropriating Exodus to Authorize Violence against Jews.” Violence and Representations of Violence in Antiquity. SBL Annual Meeting. Boston, MA. November, 2017.
  1. “From Babylon to Exodus: Making Sense of Roman Violence.” The Roman Forum: New Testament, Early Christianity, and Early Rabbinics. European Association of Bibilical Studies Annual Meeting. Berlin, Germany, August, 2017.
  1. Violence, Social Identity, and Exodus in the Making of Christianity. Seminar in Early Christianity, Early Judaism, and the Study of Religion. Canadian Society of Biblical Studies Annual Meeting. Toronto, June 2017.
  1. “Reading Exodus against Rome: Violence and Collective Identity in the Shadow of Empire.” History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism. SBL Annual Meeting. San Antonio, November, 2016.
  1. “History, Memory, and Identity in the Face of Roman Occupation.” Memory and Identity from the Exodus and Black Literature to the Digital Age. Zelikovitz Centre Faculty Colloquium. March, 2016.
  1. “Cultural Memory and Contested Identity: The Struggle over Christian Martyrdom in John’s Apocalypse.” SBL Annual Meeting. Baltimore, MD. November 2013.
  1. “Cultural Memory and Information Technology in the Apocalypse of John.” Annual Meeting of the CSBS. Victoria, BC. June 2013.
  1. “Memorializing Violence in Hellenistic Accounts of the Exodus.” SBL Annual Meeting. Chicago, IL. November 2012.

Current Projects:

Monograph:

Reading Exodus against Rome: Violence, Story, and the Origins of Judaism and Christianity (thee chapters drafted)

 Articles:

  1. “Mnemonic Strategies, Conflicting Christologies, and a Struggle over Martyrdom in the Apocalypse of John” (preparing manuscript for submission)
  1. “Trauma, Narrative and the ‘Parting of the Ways’: How Roman Conquest Led to Accusations of Deicide in the Wake of the Bar Kochba Revolt.” (editing SBL paper for publication)
  1. “Babylon between the Wars: What Apocalyptic Imaginary can teach about the ‘Parting of the Ways’” (editing ISBL/EABS paper for publication)

Honours

2017     Selected as a “Favourite Faculty Member” by students in the residence community.

2016    Guest Researcher at the University of Tübingen with the Sonderforschungsbereich 923 on “Threatened Orders,” June-July 2016.

2016    Selected as a “Favourite Faculty Member” by students in the residence community.

2008    Winner of F. W. Beare Book Award, Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, for Naming the Wtich: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World.

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